Santa Monica Reads Summer Events at Santa Monica Public Library, SMPL – In-Person Event
The Santa Monica Public Library will feature the books of two local authors in the 2023 Santa Monica Reads All Summer selections, beginning in June:
Clark and Division by Naomi Hirahara; and
Lady Tan’s Circle of Women by Lisa See.
Free copies of the books are available, while supplies list, beginning June 10 at the Main Library, Pico Branch and Montana Ave. Branch. Pick up one of our reading logs and track your hours to win prizes. Visit smpl.org/srp for more info.
Additional reading events related to these two books will be held throughout the summer.
Where: Santa Monica Public Library
Date: Monday the 12th
Time: 12 pm
Address: 601 Santa Monica Blvd., Santa Monica, CA 90401
Website: https://www.santamonica.gov/events
Book Club: They Both Die at the End via Sun Valley Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event
Join the Sun Valley Book Club participants to read and discuss this month’s selection, They Both Die at the End, by author Adam Silvera.
On September 5, a little after midnight, Death-Cast calls Mateo Torrez and Rufus Emeterio to give them some bad news: They’re going to die today. Mateo and Rufus are total strangers, but, for different reasons, they’re both looking to make a new friend on their End Day. The good news: There’s an app for that. It’s called the Last Friend, and through it, Rufus and Mateo are about to meet up for one last great adventure—to live a lifetime in a single day.
Please email ebarrera@lapl.org for the Google Meet link and additional information.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and details.
Where: Sun Valley Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Monday the 12th
Time: 4:45 pm – 5:30 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/sun-valley-book-club
Meditation Monday with Alex Petunia via L.A. Poet Society – Online Zoom Event
Meditation Monday is a workshop of Self Care for the Writer led by poet Alex Petunia and offered by the L.A. Poet Society.
It includes breathing meditation, self-check-in, writing prompts, and affirmation.
See site for details. Register in advance.
Zoom: 840 2975 5764
Where: Los Angeles Poet Society
Date: Monday the 12th
Time: 7 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.instagram.com/p/CrrKtyYv5IM/
Herbie J Pilato and Mark Villano, with Eric Scott & Irene Tsu, present Retro Active Television and Insight: The Seriesat Book Soup – In-Person Event
Insight, the Series – A Hollywood Priest’s Groundbreaking Contribution to Television History: Created by Fr. Ellwood Kieser, known as the “Hollywood Priest,” INSIGHT brought together some of the best television writers, directors, and actors of the 1960s, 70s, and 80s. Together, they produced a memorable, Emmy-winning series that dealt with the moral implications of contemporary issues and broke new ground in religious broadcasting.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Monday the 12th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/Herbie-J-Pilato-Mark-Villano
At Skylight: Daniel Weizman, with Ben Merlis, & The Last Songbird at Skylight Books – In-Person Event
Daniel Wiezman, in conversation with Ben Merlis, will discuss his new novel, The Last Songbird.
This book is a gritty, fast-paced neo-noir that explores the consumptive nature of fame, celebrity, and motherhood through the lens of a driver lost in the gig economy.
A struggling songwriter and Lyft driver, Adam Zantz’s life changes when he accepts a ride request in Malibu and 1970s music icon Annie Linden enters his dented VW Jetta. Bonding during that initial ride, the two quickly go off app—over the next three years, Adam becomes her exclusive driver and Annie listens to his music, encouraging Adam even as he finds himself driving more often than songwriting.
Then, Annie disappears, and her body washes up under a pier. Left with a final, cryptic text—‘come to my arms’—a grieving Adam plays amateur detective, only to be charged as accomplice-after-the-fact. Desperate to clear his name and discover who killed the one person who believed in his music when no one else in his life did, Adam digs deep into Annie’s past. As he drive travels the outskirts of Los Angeles in California, Adam comes to question how well he, or anyone else, knew Annie—if at all.
Daniel Weizmann is a writer and editor whose work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Billboard, the Guardian, AP Newswire, and more. Under the nom de plume, Shredder, Weizmann also wrote for the long running Flipside fanzine, as well as LA Weekly, which once called him “an incomparable punk stylist.” Most recently, Weizmann co-authored Game Changer by Michael Solomon and Rishon Blumberg (Harper Leadership, 2020). He lives in Los Angeles, California.
Ben Merlis is a Los Angeles writer/musician/publicist who has contributed to HeartattaCk, uDiscover Music, Rock The Bells, and Please Kill Me. He is the author of Goin’ Off: The Story of the Juice Crew & Cold Chillin’ Records (BMG Books, 2019). His favorite music genres are 1.5 and New Wave Yacht Rock.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Skylight Books
Date: Monday the 12th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-daniel-weizmann-presents-last-songbird-w-ben-merlis
Phil Allen Jr. & The Prophetic Lens: The Camera and Black Moral Agency from MLK to Darnella Frazier at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
Phil Allen, Jr. will present and discuss The Prophetic Lens: The Camera and Black Moral Agency from MLK to Darnella Frazier.
The Prophetic Lens takes an important look at the use of the video camera as an indispensable prophetic tool for the security of Black lives and greater possibility for racial justice. Phil Allen shows how the camera can be a catalyst for cultural change, using Walter Brueggemann’s Prophetic Imagination as a framework for understanding the concept of “prophetic.” Chronicling the use of the camera, particularly in film from J.D. Griffiths’ Birth of a Nation to Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing, Allen’s historical approach reveals how effective this technology has been in achieving the goals of its respective storytellers.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Monday the 12th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/Phillip-Allen-discusses-The-Prophetic-Lens
Monday Night Fiction Workshop at Beyond Baroque – Zoom Online Event
This free Monday Night Fiction Workshop led by Raquel Baker is a community writing workshop in which participants are asked to bring copies of 2-3 pages of fiction to read, and to use for critique and discussion. Registration is required.
Raquel Baker earned a PhD in English Literary Studies from the University of Iowa and an MFA in Creative Writing from Mills College. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Postcolonial and Transnational Literatures at California State University Channel Islands, teaching courses on creative writing and contemporary African literatures. Raquel has published poetry in Africology and The Arrow; fiction in Enculturation, The Daily Palette, The Womanist, and Crux; and non-fiction in Little Village; and has done readings with the Ventura County Poetry project. Raquel lives for talking about all things about the craft and social meanings of literature!
Where: Beyond Baroque – Online event
Date: Monday the 12th
Time: 7:30 pm – 10 pm
Address: Zoom Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.beyondbaroque.org/free_workshops.html or https://www.eventbrite.com/e/monday-night-fiction-workshop-tickets-652067008977?aff=erelexpmlt
Your Author Series: The Sister Split and I Think I Love You by Auriane Desombre at Pio Pico – Koreatown Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person MG Event
The Los Angeles Public Library proudly presents author Auriane Descombre as she discusses her middle-grade reader The Sister Split. A pair of soon-to-be stepsisters creates a plan that will stop their parents from getting married—but they soon learn that matters of the heart can surprise you! This is a fresh sister story evocative of The Parent Trap with LGBTQ themes for the modern reader.
Those attending the program will have an opportunity to win a free book.
Where: Pio Pico – Koreatown Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Tuesday the 13th
Time: 4 pm
Address: 694 S. Oxford Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90005
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/your-author-series-auriane-desombre
Shape, Sound, Frame and Fury: Writing Workshop via The Poetry Lab – Online Event
In this workshop participants will study examples from Fat Girl Forms by Stephanie Rogers. We will discuss how Rogers harnesses the power of shape by working with traditional and non-traditional forms and implementing her own strategy in working through these forms. Published in 2021 and Rogers’ second collection, we will also study how this text embodies the physicality of a book, and what we might consider in our own manuscript building. We will then consider how all these elements combine to deliver the stakes of the poem, and the fury of the speaker.
This one-time class is offered via Zoom. Pay what you can: $4-$25.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, registration, link, and details.
Where: The Poetry Lab
Date: Tuesday the 13th
Time: 5:30 pm – 7:30 pm PST
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.thepoetrylab.com/summer/#shape
Poetry Open Mic via Westwood Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event
Share a poem you wrote or a poem you love! You are also welcome to just listen and enjoy.
Emceed by Wyatt Underwood.
To receive a Zoom invitation, please contact wwood@lapl.org.
Where: Westwood Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Tuesday the 13th
Time: 6 pm
Address: Online event
Website: https://www.lapl.org/whats-on/events/poetry-open-mic
Conchas y Café–Bilingual Community Writing Workshop Series via DSTL Arts – Online Event
Conchas y Café bilingual community writing workshop series is a 12-week virtual course that explores skills in poetry and other forms of creative writing. Writers of all skill levels are welcome to join.
This Spring series will culminate with the publishing of Conchas y Café Zine; Vol. 8, Issue 3.
The theme we will be exploring during this series and zine is “TBD.”
To enroll in our series, visit: https://classroom.google.com/c/NTM3ODEzNTM2NTAw?cjc=gnnidkl
info@dstlarts.org
Created by: luis@dstlarts.org
Where: DSTL Arts
Date: Tuesday the 13th (weekly until June 28, 2023)
Time: 6:30 pm – 8 pm
Address: Online event (Google Classroom)
Website: https://www.dstlarts.org/calendar
Shelby Stanger, with Felicia Alexander, & Will to Wild at Diesel, a Bookstore – In-Person Event
Shelby Stanger, in conversation with Felica Alexander, will read from, discuss, and sign her book, Your Future Self.
Will to Wild is an instruction manual to adventure. Your guide: enthusiastic outdoorswoman Shelby Stanger. Shelby has been teaching folks how to leap into the unknown since she taught her first surf class over twenty years ago. Over the years, she watched many of her students quit their jobs, end dysfunctional relationships, and move across the country for a healthier work-life-balance—all after spending a bit of time in nature. Shelby marveled at the phenomenon. Being outside was changing the lives of her students, her peers, and herself. Shelby was so intrigued, she began to tell their stories, first as a writer and journalist, then as a podcast host for Wild Ideas Worth Living, REI Co-op Studio’s flagship podcast.
In these pages, you will find stories with practical tips and tactics, from rock climbers and ultra-runners, to longtime thru-hikers, surfers, desk jockeys who’ve figured out how to get off the clock, and even a suburban mom who started teaching women to scale frozen waterfalls in her mid-fifties. Along with Shelby’s stories, they will show you how to get unstuck, how to pay attention to “trail signs” that point you toward your adventure, how to face your fears, and what to do when everything goes haywire (which will likely happen, never fear!).
Shelby Stanger is the host and creator of the hit podcast, Wild Ideas Worth Living, an REI Co-Op Studios production. Over the years, her work has appeared everywhere from Outside Magazine to ESPN, and she has spoken to organizations like The Girl Scouts of America, NPR, and Creative Mornings. Always chasing adventure herself, Shelby has surfed from Canada to Costa Rica; sand-boarded down desolate dunes in Cape Town; paddled down a remote portion of the Amazon River (so many bug bites); and interviewed countless CEOs, athletes, activists, and thought leaders.
Felicia Alexander is the CRO of TITLE Boxing Club and Co-Founder of BoxUnion. A big believer of using fitness as a way to empower others, knock out stress, and bring together community, Felicia can often be found at one of her own studios in LA, bringing friends to try out any of the latest fitness studios around, or empowering other female entrepreneurs. The mom of a 16 year-old, she also volunteers at several non- profits and serves on the board of Directors for Rock Steady Boxing, which brings boxing training to combat symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Diesel, a Bookstore
Date: Tuesday the 13th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 225 26th St., Santa Monica, CA 90402
Website: https://www.dieselbookstore.com/event/brentwood-Shelby-Stanger-Felicia-Alexander-will-wild
Elissa Sussman, with Alisha Rai, & Once More with Feeling at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Elissa Sussman, in conversation with Alisha Rai, will present and discuss her new book, Once More with Feeling: A Novel.
Then. Katee Rose is living the dream as America’s number one pop star, caught in a whirlwind of sold-out concerts, screaming fans, and constant tabloid coverage. Everyone wants to know everything about her and her boyfriend, Ryan LaNeve, the hottest member of adored boy band CrushZone. Katee loves to perform but hates the impossible demands of stardom. Maybe that’s why she finds herself in the arms of another CrushZone member, Cal Kirby. Quiet, serious Cal, who’s always been a good friend to Katee, is suddenly Cal with the smoldering eyes and very good hands. One unforgettable night is all it takes to blow up Katee’s relationship with Ryan, her career, her whole life.
Now. Kathleen Rosenberg is okay with her ordinary existence and leaving her pop star image in the past. That is, until Cal Kirby shows up with the opportunity of her dreams—a starring role in the Broadway show he’s directing and a chance to perform, the way she’s always wanted. The two haven’t spoken since the joint destruction of their careers, and each of them blames the other, making their reunion a tense battle of wits and egos. Kathleen reluctantly agrees to the musical, as long as she keeps her guard up around Cal. But rehearsals are long, those eyes still smolder, and those hands are still very good. Despite everything, Kathleen can’t deny the chemistry between them. Is it ever a good idea to reignite old flames? Especially if you’ve been burned in the past?
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Tuesday the 13th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/Elissa-Sussman
Adult Book Group & The Sentence at Once Upon a Time – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
Join the Adult Book Club that has been going strong for 40+ years at America’s Oldest Children’s Bookstore!
Participants will read this month’s selection, The Sentence, by author Louise Erdrich.
In this New York Times bestselling novel, Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award–winning author Louise Erdrich creates a wickedly funny ghost story, a tale of passion, of a complex marriage, and of a woman’s relentless errors. It asks what we owe to the living, the dead, to the reader and to the book. A small independent bookstore in Minneapolis is haunted from November 2019 to November 2020 by the store’s most annoying customer. Flora dies on All Souls’ Day, but she simply won’t leave the store. Tookie, who has landed a job selling books after years of incarceration that she survived by reading “with murderous attention,” must solve the mystery of this haunting while at the same time trying to understand all that occurs in Minneapolis during a year of grief, astonishment, isolation, and furious reckoning.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, link, and details.
Where: Once Upon a Time
Date: Tuesday the 13th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, CA 91020
Website: https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event/adult-book-group-sentence-louise-erdrich-hybrid
At Skylight: Javier Fuentes, with Stephanie Danler, & Countries of Origin at Skylight Books – In-Person Event
Javier Fuentes, in conversation with Stephanie Danler, will present and discuss his book, Countries of Origin.
This novel is a stunning debut chronicling a tumultuous, passionate love affair between two young men from vastly different worlds during one, extraordinary summer in Spain, in what is ultimately a meditation on identity, class, belonging and desire.
It is 2007, and twenty-four-year-old Demetrio is a celebrated pastry chef in New York at the French restaurant Le Bourrelet. This will be his seventh year as the pâtissier and the chef-owner, stern but paternal, feels he should move on. When Demetrio is offered a position as head of pastries at the Four Seasons restaurant in New York, he wants nothing more than to accept it.
But as an undocumented immigrant he is terrified that he will be found out, so Demetrio makes the difficult decision to return permanently to his homeland which he has not seen since he was a small child. It will mean leaving the only family he knows—his beloved uncle Chus who has brought him up. On his flight to Madrid, Demetrio sits next to the handsome, playful, and sensitive Jacobo, a student at NYU going home to his aristocratic, fascist family and there is an instant, unacknowledged electricity between them.
Javier Fuentes is a Spanish American writer, a 2018 Lambda Literary Fellow, who earned an MFA in Fiction from Columbia University where he was a teaching fellow. Born in Barcelona, he lives in New York.
Stephanie Danler is a novelist, memoirist, and screenwriter. She is the author of Stray and the international bestseller Sweetbitter. She is the creator and executive producer of the Sweetbitter television series on Starz.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Skylight Books
Date: Tuesday the 13th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Stories’ Music & Words Series with Rachel Bobbitt & Derrick C. Brown at Stories Books & Café – In-Person Event
Stories presents a new recurring series, Music & Words, which pairs a live music act and a storyteller.
The first installment features Rachel Bobbitt (@rachel_bobbitt) and Derrick C. Brown (@derrickbrownpoetry).
Rachel Bobbitt is an artist from Nova Scotia, Canada. On her piercing and profound new EP, The Ceiling Could Collapse, Bobbitt picks through the dizzying rubble of folk and indie rock for moments of resonant emotion and frames them in heartbreaking lyrics and openhearted expanses.
Derrick C. Brown is a comedian, poet/performer and founder of Write Bloody Publishing. He is the author of several books of poetry and is a popular touring author.
NOTE: See site for guidelines, and details.
Where: Stories Books & Café
Date: Tuesday the 13th
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 1716 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026
Website: https://storiesla.com/events
Szilvia Molnar, with Gabrielle Zevin, & The Nursery at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
Author Szilvia Molnar, in conversation with Gabrielle Zevin, will present, discuss, and sign her new book, The Nursery; A Novel.
There is the before and the after. Withering in the maternal prison of her apartment, a new mother finds herself spiraling into a state of complete disaffection. As a translator, she is usually happy to spend her days as the invisible interpreter. But now home alone with her newborn, she is ill at ease with this state of perpetual giving, carrying, feeding. The instinct to keep her baby safe conflicts with the intrusive thoughts of causing the baby harm, and she struggles to reclaim her identity just as it seems to dissolve from underneath her.
The Nursery documents the slow process of staggering back towards the simple pleasures of life and reentering the world after post-partum depression.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Tuesday the 13th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/Szilvia-Molnar-with-Gabrielle-Zevin-discusses-The-Nursery
WeHo Reads: Shining Like Beacons Event via City of West Hollywood – Online Zoom Event
The WeHo Reads Series, in collaboration with Lambda Literary, features: K-Ming Chang, Golden, Kamden Hilliard and Natalie Wee. WeHo Reads is the City of West Hollywood’s literary series; presented during the WeHo Pride Arts Festival.
K-Ming Chang is the author of the novel Bestiary (2020). Gods of Want won the 2023 Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction. Chang grew up in California and currently lives in New York.
Golden is the author of A Dead Name That Learned How to Live (Game Over Books) and the photographic self-portraiture series On Learning How to Live. They currently live in Brooklyn, NY (Lenapehoking land).
Kamden Hilliard is the author of MissSettl (Nightboat Books, 2022), their debut collection of poems, and a member of the Faculty at Choate Rosemary Hall. He was born in La Jolla, CA; their fam settled on O’ahu, Hawai’i. Kamden holds a BA in American Studies from The University of Hawai’i at Mānoa and an MFA in Poetry from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Kamden, a nonbinary Black settler who goes by Kam, works on issues of surveillance, race, queerness, contemporary art and American politics.
Natalie Wee a queer creator and the author of two poetry collections, Our Bodies & Other Fine Machines and Beast at Every Threshold. Born in Singapore to Malaysian parents, Natalie is currently a settler in Tkaronto.
NOTE: Details and Zoom link at event link.
Where: WeHo Reads – Online Zoom Event
Date: Tuesday the 13th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: Online event (see site)
Website: https://www.weho.org/Home/Components/Calendar/Event
The Virtual Cobalt Series & Open Mic with George Bilgere via Online Zoom Event – Online Event
The Virtual Cobalt Poets Series, presented by Rick Lupert via Zoom, will feature an Open Reading and guest George Bilgere.
George Bilgere has published six collections of poetry, including Imperial (2014); The White Museum (2010), which was awarded the Autumn House Poetry Prize; Haywire (2006), which on the May Swenson Poetry Award; and The Good Kiss (2002), which was selected by Billy Collins to win the University of Akron Poetry Award. He has won numerous awards, including the Midland Authors Award and a Pushcart Prize. Bilgere has received grants from the Witter Bynner Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Fulbright Commission, and the Ohio Arts Council.
NOTE: Details and Zoom link at event link.
Where: Cobalt Poets – Online Zoom Event
Date: Tuesday the 13th
Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm
Address: Online event (see site)
Website: http://poetrysuperhighway.com/cobalt/calendar.html
The Sunless Sea Open Mic: Poetry and Spoken Word Show – In-Person Event
The Sunless Sea Open Mic: Poetry and Spoken Word Show is offered every week at the Unurban Coffee House. Hosted by DeForest Wright, all are invited to attend.
NOTE: Details at event link.
Where: Unurban Coffee House
Date: Tuesday the 13th
Time: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm
Address: 3301 Pico Blvd., Santa Monica, CA 90405
Website: https://www.facebook.com/groups
Da Poetry Lounge Open Mic Night at Greenway Court – In-Person Event
The nation’s largest weekly Open Mic event is 25 years strong. They hold open mic nights. At an open mic, all are welcome to share their poetry or sit in their audience.
Every Tuesday (except for 3rd Tuesdays which is Slam Night) we hold open mic nights. At an open mic, all are welcome to share their poetry or sit in our audience.
TIME LIMIT: Each artist has 3 minutes at the mic, and if you go over, our DJ will scratch you. Please be respectful of the time limit as we try to accommodate as many people as possible.
$10 donation. Do NOT line up prior to 7:30 p.m. Free parking adjacent to theatre.
See sites for details.
Masks are encouraged. All ages are welcome.
Where: Greenway Court Theatre and YouTube Live Stream
Date: Tuesday the 13th
Time: 9 pm – 11 pm
Address: 544 N. Fairfax Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90036
Website: https://www.instagram.com/p/ChLUBSRPCFb/ or
https://www.dapoetrylounge.com/events/open-mic-night
Neverspeak Tuesdays Open Mic at DiPiazza’s – In-Person Event
The Neverspeak Tuesdays Open Mic at DiPiazza’s with Shy But Flyy, will feature guest poet TBA + an open mic.
NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.
Where: DiPiazza’s Pizza
Date: Tuesday the 13th
Time: 9 pm
Address: 5205 E. Pacific Coast Hwy., Long Beach, CA 90814
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/open-mic-w-shy-but-flyy-music-poetry-tickets-533965133087
Mystery Book Club: Black Cake at West Valley Regional Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
The Mystery Book Club will discuss this month’s selection, Black Cake: A Novel, by author Charmaine Wilkerson.
Black Cake is set in present-day California, where Eleanor Bennett’s death leaves behind a puzzling inheritance for her two children, Byron and Benny: a black cake, made from a family recipe with a long history, and a voice recording. In her message, Eleanor shares a tumultuous story about a headstrong young swimmer who escapes her island home under suspicion of murder. The heartbreaking tale Eleanor unfolds, the secrets she still holds back, and the mystery of a long-lost child challenge everything the siblings thought they knew about their lineage and themselves.
Please email wvally@lapl.org with “Mystery Book Club” in the subject line for information on the title to be discussed and the Zoom link.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: West Valley Regional Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday the 14th
Time: 10:30 am – 12 pm
Address: 19036 Vanowen St., Reseda, CA 91335
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/mystery-book-club-15
Write Your Novel Event at Platt Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
The Platt Branch Library invites you to write your novel at their library.
Is writing one of your New Year’s resolutions for 2023? Is completing a book on your bucket list? Whether you shouted an emphatic yes or mumbled a hushed maybe to either of those questions, our new novel writing support group is for you. This new group will be a place to learn, practice, and receive support from other writers. We will use LinkedIn Learning courses available on lapl.org to guide us through the novel writing process one step at a time. With weekly goals and the encouragement of your peers, you can spend the year working your way toward a completed novel.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Platt Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday the 14th
Time: 3:30 pm – 4:30 pm
Address: 23600 Victory Blvd., Woodland Hills, CA 91367
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/write-your-novel
Your Author Series: Jose Lozano & Once Around the Block at Vernon Memorial Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Kids Event
The Your Author Series presents Jose Lozano to discuss his children’s book, Once Around the Block.
The Los Angeles Public Library is proud to present local author/illustrator José Lozano. José will be discussing his book Once Around the Block. There’s always a lot of action in the Mexican American neighborhood where Mr. Lozano lives. Amelia argues with Anita; Benito loves bean burritos but not bumblebees; Hortencia and Herminia hover around like hummingbirds; and Zacarias is catching some Zs on Zachary Street.
José Lozano’s wacky little stories and illustrations combine Mexican culture with Sesame Street smarts to make for a wonderful read-aloud ABC book in Spanish and English.
Those attending the program will have an opportunity to win a free book.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Vernon Memorial Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday the 14th
Time: 4 pm
Address: 4504 S. Central Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90011
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/your-author-series-jose-lozano
Creative Writing Workshop with Tony DuShane at Los Feliz Branch Library, LAPL – Online Event
Join us on Zoom for a 90-minute writer’s workshop. This free Creative Writing Workshop is presented by UCLA instructor Tony DuShane, screenwriter of the film Confessions of a Teenage Jesus Jerk, based on his novel of the same name. Adults only.
RSVP:
Please email mpanzera@lapl.org for a link to the workshop.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and details.
Where: Los Feliz Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday the 14th
Time: 6 pm
Address: Online Event
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/creative-writing-workshop-tony-dushane-18
Book Discussion: Nuclear Family by Joseph Han at Felipe de Neve Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
The Felipe de Neve Branch Library hosts a book discussion of Joseph Han’s Nuclear Family: A Novel.
Set in the months leading up to the 2018 nuclear missile false alarm, a Korean American family living in Hawai’i faces the fallout of their eldest son’s attempt to run across the Demilitarized Zone into North Korea in this “fresh, inventive, and at times, hilarious novel” (Kaui Hart Hemmings, author of The Descendants).
Enjoy a lively discussion with coffee, tea and Korean snacks!
Check out the book from LAPL or borrow the e-book on Libby or Hoopla!
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Felipe de Neve Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Wednesday the 14th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 2820 W. 6th St., Los Angeles, CA 90057
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/book-discussion-jospeh-hans-nuclear-family
Poets Out Loud: traci kato-kiriyama + F. Douglas Brown at Bel Canto Books KUBO LB – In-Person Event
Join the Poets Out Loud event to hear poets traci kato-kiryama and F.Douglas Brown read from their most recent books: Navigating Without Instruments and Zero to Three, respectively.
With their second book, Navigating With(out) Instruments, traci kato-kiriyama uses her present-political unrest, family love and loss, her own cancer diagnosis-to join the traumas of the past generations with the hope of the future ones. Often seamless, often with a loud bang, kato-kiriyama moves from genre to genre, from poetry to essays to plays and to letters, framed by the history of US colonialism and war mongering, to urge readers to protect and to share their legacies, both personal and communal, as a means of global survival.
What started out as a way to address dealing with parenting and, in particular, fatherhood, became a series of poems focused on familial roles and situations that are difficult to articulate, even among family members. The poems in Zero to Three mark both the change in the child and in the father, who is also a son himself. The term “zero to three” derives from the developmental period that many clinicians and pediatricians beli eve is the most fundamental phase for children whose delicate brains are undergoing drastic and formative change. Research also shows that parents undergo formative change alongside their children during this period from conception to toddler age. These poems do not intend to offer a definitive stance on parenting or fatherhood but, rather, to capture an emotional gestational period that extends beyond the womb and exceeds beyond the grave. They celebrate pop culture and family, as well as lament the anguish and frustration of a parent losing his temper or a parent losing a parent. Ultimately, these poems attempt to sing and dance in the fact that parenting is a wonderful mystery to witness and experience.
traci kato-kiriyama (they+she), author of Navigating With(out) Instruments—based on unceded Tongva land in the south bay of Los Angeles—is an award-winning multidisciplinary artist, recognized for their work as a writer/performer, theatre deviser, cultural producer, and community organizer. An artivist in practice, traci is a core organizer with the Nikkei Progressives/NCRR joint Reparations Committee; a longtime member of the Okaeri Nikkei LGBTQ+ Network; a core artist with Vigilant Love and the Solidarity Arts Fellowship, bridging Muslim and Japanese American young adults; and is the Director/Co-Founder of Tuesday Night Project – longtime connector of art+community and presenter of Tuesday Night Cafe, at 24 years, the longest-running Asian American-produced public arts series in the nation.
F. Douglas Brown is the author of two poetry collections, ICON (Writ Large Press, 2018), and Zero to Three (University of Georgia, 2014), winner of the 2013 Cave Canem Poetry Prize selected by US Poet Laureate, Tracy K. Smith. He also co-authored with poet Geffrey Davis, Begotten (URB Books, 2016), a chapbook of poetry as part of the Floodgate Poetry Series. Brown, an educator for over 25 years, currently teaches African American Poetry and African American Studies at Loyola High School of Los Angeles, where he serves as the Director of the Office of Equity and Inclusion. He is both a Cave Canem and Kundiman fellow and was selected by Poets & Writers as one of their ten notable Debut Poets of 2014.
KUBO LB is a creative community space for Filipinx, BIPOC, LGBTQ, and Women led small businesses. KUBO LB is a space to support and educate small businesses through retail, business workshops and more.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: Bel Canto Books. KUBO LB
Date: Wednesday the 14th
Time: 6 pm – 7:30 pm
Address: 3976 Atlantic Ave., Long Beach, CA
Book Talk & Signing: Ron Cey & Penguin Power at Diesel, a Bookstore – In-Person Event
Athlete and author Ron Cey will sign his new memoir, Penguin Power: Dodger Blue, Hollywood Lights, and My One-in-a-Million Big League Journey.
In Penguin Power: Dodger Blue, Hollywood Lights, and a One-in-a-Million Big League Journey, “The Penguin” Ron Cey and veteran Dodgers scribe Ken Gurnick take fans on an amazing ride from Cey’s formative years in the Pacific Northwest through his stardom on and off the field in Los Angeles and beyond. As part of the longest running infield in MLB history, six-time All Star and 1981 co-World Series MVP Cey joined Steve Garvey, Davey Lopes, and Bill Russell to help the Dodgers triumph after years of postseason heartbreak, and bring the first World Series back to Los Angeles since Sandy Koufax and the Boys of Summer of 1965. Featuring charming stories from Cey’s time in a memorable clubhouse alongside Dodger legends Lasorda, Garvey, and Fernando Valenzuela, with Vin Scully and Jaime Jarrín in the booth, as well as tales of the life of a star during a magical time in Los Angeles, Penguin Power is a must-read for fans of an unforgettable era of Dodgers baseball.
Ron Cey played in Major League Baseball as a third baseman from 1971 through 1987. He won four National League pennants and one World Series with the Los Angeles Dodgers. He was the 1981 World Series MVP.
Ken Gurnick spent nearly four decades on the Los Angeles Dodgers beat, from 1982 until his retirement in 2020. He covered the team for MLB.com for 20 seasons and previously wrote for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Diesel, a Bookstore (in the Courtyard)
Date: Wednesday the 14th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 225 26th St., Santa Monica, CA 90402
Website: https://www.dieselbookstore.com/event/brentwood-wednesday-june-14th-630-pm-Ron-Cey-signing
Gagosian at Marciano Art Foundation | Reading: Rothenberg & Bernstein at Beyond Baroque Off-site at Gagosian – In-Person Event
Join Gagosian and Beyond Baroque for an evening with poets Jerome Rothenberg and Charles Bernstein inside Anselm Kiefer’s exhibition Exodus at Gagosian at Marciano Art Foundation, Los Angeles. Two of the most consequential figures in radical poetics over the past half century, Rothenberg and Bernstein will explore some of the themes that occupy Kiefer—Jewish mysticism, the poetry of Paul Celan, and the formulation of a global poetics in response to the Holocaust—in a conversation and readings of their poetry.
Parking is limited. Ride share is encouraged.
Where: Gagosian at Marciano Art Foundation
Date: Wednesday the 14th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 4357 Wilshire Boulevard Los Angeles, CA 90010
Rachel Nuwer, with Michelle Lhooq, & I Feel Love at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Rachel Nuwer, in conversation with Michelle Lhooq, will present and discuss her new book, I Feel Love: Mdma and the Quest for Connection in a Fractured World.
Few drugs in history have generated as much controversy as MDMA-or held as much promise. Once vilified as a Schedule I substance that would supposedly eat holes in users’ brains, MDMA (also known as Molly or Ecstasy) is now being hailed as a therapeutic agent that could transform the field of mental health and outpace psilocybin and ketamine as the first psychedelic approved for widespread clinical use.
In I Feel Love, science journalist Rachel Nuwer separates fact from fantasy, hope from hype, in the drug’s contested history and still-evolving future. Evidence from scientific trials suggests MDMA, properly administered, can be startlingly effective at relieving the effects of trauma. Results from other studies point to its usefulness for individual and couples therapy; for treating depression, alcohol addiction, and eating disorders; and for cultivating personal growth. Yet scientists are still racing to discover how MDMA achieves these outcomes, a mystery that is taking them into the inner recesses of the brain and the deep history of evolution. With its power to dismantle psychological defenses and induce feelings of empathy, self-compassion, and love, MDMA may answer profound questions about how we became human, and how to heal our broken social bonds.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Wednesday the 14th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/Rachel-Nuwer
At Skylight: Adorah Nworah, with Anna Dorn, & House Woman at Skylight Books – In-Person Event
Adorah Nworah, in conversation with Anna Dorn, will present and discuss her book, House Woman.
When Ikemefuna is put on a plane from Lagos to Texas, she anticipates her newly arranged All-American life: a handsome husband, a beautiful red-brick mansion in Sugar Land, pizza parlors, and dance classes.
Shy and willing to please, she’ll happily cater to her family’s needs before her own. But Ikemefuna soon discovers what it actually means to live with her in-laws. Demands for a grandson become desperately urgent and the freedom to do as she pleases is put under lock-and-key by an enabling husband.
As their marriage succumbs to generational cycles of pain and silence, family secrets boil to the surface, and Ikemefuna must decide how to scrape herself out of an impossibly sticky situation.
An unforgettably delicious thriller, Adorah Nworah’s debut is about a woman trapped in a dangerous web of secrets and desires melting in the Texas heat.
Adorah Nworah is an Igbo writer from South-East Nigeria. Her stories have been pu blished in AFREADA and adda magazine. Her short stories, The Bride and Broken English made the shortlist for the 2019 Commonwealth Writers Short Story Prize and the longlist for the 2018 Short Story Day Africa Prize respectively. She lives in Philadelphia, where she practices real estate finance law and is cat mom to a handsome Napoleon cat.
Anna Dorn is an author, editor, and writing teacher living in Los Angeles. Anna teaches writing classes at Write or Die and is an associate editor at Hobart Pulp. She was a Lambda Literary Fellow and her second novel Exalted is a finalist for the L.A. Times Book Prize. Her next novel Perfume and Pain is coming soon.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Skylight Books
Date: Wednesday the 14th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Website: https://www.skylightbooks.com/event/skylight-adorah-nworah-presents-house-woman-w-anna-dorn
Christian Lynch, with Glynis Costin, & Sally Brady’s Italian Adventure at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
Christina Lynch, in conversation with Glynis Costin, will present and discuss her new book, Sally Brady’s Italian Adventure: A Novel.
What if you found yourself in the middle of a war armed only with lipstick and a sense of humor? Abandoned as a child in Los Angeles in 1931, dust bowl refugee Sally Brady convinces a Hollywood movie star to adopt her and grows up to be an effervescent gossip columnist secretly satirizing Europe’s upper crust. By 1940 saucy Sally is conquering Fascist-era Rome with cheek and charm.
A good deed leaves Sally stranded in wartime Italy, brandishing a biting wit, a fake passport, and an lastic sense of right and wrong. To save her friends and find her way home through a land of besieged castles and villas, Sally must combat tragedy with comedy, tie up pompous bureaucrats in their own red tape, force the cruel to be kind, and unravel the mystery, weight, and meaning of family.
Heir to Odysseus’s wiles and Candide’s optimism, Sally Brady is a heroine for the 21st century.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Wednesday the 14th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/Christina-Lynch-discusses-Sally-Bradys-Italian-Adventureb
Anansi Writers Workshop at The World Stage – In-Person Event
The Anansi Writers Workshop was founded in 1990 by Kamau Daáood, Akilah Oliver, Nafis Nabawi and Anthony Lyons. In 1993, Michael Datcher initiated the development of a three-part format for the workshop. Our tradition of a community workshop began in the late 1960s at the Watts Writers’ Workshop, where World Stage co-founder Kamau Daáood started his writing career. For general information and booking, contact V. Kali, the Anansi Writers Workshop Coordinator, at vkaliflowers@gmail.com.
- 7:30 pm – 8:30 pm — Formal workshop;
- 8:30 pm – 9:00 pm — Reading: Honoring Tina Turner;
- 9:05 pm – 10:00 pm — Open mic.
Suggested: $5.00 Donation
NOTE: See site for further details, and any change in the schedule. Contact kaliflowers@gmial.com or call (323) 293-2451
Where: The World Stage
Date: Wednesday the 14th
Time: 7:30 pm – 10 pm
Address: 4321 Degnan Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90008
Website: https://www.theworldstage.org/events.html
Wednesday Night Poetry Workshop at Beyond Baroque – Online Zoom Event
Join Beyond Baroque’s longest-running free poetry workshop via Zoom online as we welcome new and seasoned poets to share their work and provide feedback. Please be prepared to share one poem. This workshop will be hosted via the Zoom video-conferencing platform. Please sign up for each workshop session at least 24 hours in advance of the meeting, and you will be contacted with instructions on how to join the meeting.
The workshop facilitator is James Cushing, who retired in 2020 after thirty-five years teaching literature and creative writing in San Luis Obispo, CA, where he served as the community’s poet laureate in 2008-2010. Cushing’s poems have appeared widely and his collections include The Length of an Afternoon, Undercurrent Blues, Pinocchio’s Revolution, The Magicians’ Union, Solace, and Tangled Hologram, all from Cahuenga Press in Los Ángeles.
Please spend some time before the workshop learning how to share documents via Zoom. It will keep the session moving if you’re able to make your poem viewable quickly and easily. Here’s an instructive video that might help.
The workshop can sometimes reach high levels of attendance, which means not everyone will get a chance to read every session.
NOTE: See site for further details, tickets, and information.
Where: Beyond Baroque
Date: Wednesday the 14th
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm
Address: Online event (see site)
Website: eventbrite.com/e/wednesday-night-poetry-workshop-tickets-648176462247
Poetry Reading & Open Mic by Two Idiots Peddling Poetry with Ben Trigg & Feature K.R. Morrison at The Ugly Mug – In-Person Event
Join host Ben Trigg and Two Idiots Peddling Poetry at the Ugly Mug on Wednesday Night for our Reading & Open Mic, with featured guest K.R. Morrison.
K.R. Morrison has been searching for mermaids in a sea town in Southern California, often returning to the Bay Area for her poetry nests and to play drums for two all-female fronted rock bands—HARRIOT and UNICRÖNE. Morrison is a Pushcart Nominee for her poem, “Her Altar” and still enjoys readings and podcasts celebrating Cauldrons, published by Paper Press Books. K.R. spent 17 years as a sea captain for the teens, at Galileo High School. Using creative writing and literature, she worked with countless students, earning the name “Mama Mo” with many who left her classroom—armed with writing and literacy tools for healing. Morrison continues her work in education through workshops in the juvenal hall system and online teaching. These days, Morrison gypsies up and down the coast for music and poetry and drowns in an abyss of new poems that will hopefully take the form of three separate manuscripts.
The format is to welcome a featured artist for an individual reading, as well as an Open Mic reading.
$4 cover fee, cash only.
NOTE: See site for further details, guidelines & information.
Where: The Ugly Mug, Orange
Date: Wednesday the 14th
Time: 8 pm
Address: 261 N. Glassell St., Orange, CA 92866
Website: https://www.facebook.com/events
PUA RECESSmic Open Mic at bascohouse, Palms Up Academy – In-Person Event
Let’s go CAMPING. See calendar for RECESSmic event every week.
Check for details and to verify.
NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.
Where: BASCOHouse
Date: Wednesday the 14th
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm
Address: 730 E. Broadway, Long Beach, CA 90814
Website: https://www.instagram.com/palmsupacademy/ or https://www.instagram.com/p/Cs__IfovB3o/
SOM Wednesdays Open Mic at Roscoe’s Lounge – In-Person Event
The SOM Open Mic is held Wednesdays at venue Roscoe’s Lounge with music, comedy, and poetry + an open mic. Hosted by Kyle Davis.
Check to verify.
NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.
Where: Roscoe’s Lounge
Date: Wednesday the 14th
Time: 8 pm (Sign-ups at 7:30 pm)
Address: 730 E. Broadway, Long Beach, CA 90814
Website: https://www.facebook.com/somopenmic/
Summer Book Club: Write the Summer Away 2023 – Week 1 at Once Upon a Time – In-Person Event
Read and write together in Montrose by enjoying a family read-aloud featuring a short story from The Human Kaboom by author Adam Rubin, followed by a group writing activity!
Suggestion: Order dinner from your favorite Montrose restaurant and listen to the story while you wait for your food.
Perfect for aspiring writers ages 8 and up.
Free to attend. No RSVP required.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, link, and details.
Where: Once Upon a Time
Date: Thursday the 15th
Time: 5:30 pm
Address: 2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, CA 91020
Website: https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event/write-summer-away-2023-week-1
Nadia Davis & Home Is Within You: A Memoir of Recovery and Redemption at Bel Canto Books at The Hangout – In-Person Event
Join this Bel Canto Books event to hear author Nadia Davis read from her book,Home Is Within You: A Memoir of Recovery and Redemption.
As a young Latina and Native American lawyer and former wife of California’s attorney general and treasurer, Nadia Davis has long been subjected to public scrutiny. In this powerful homage to finding one’s worth in the face of mental health struggles, addiction, and public shaming, Davis shares her remarkable story. She reveals the depths of the darkness she went through, while gracefully offering transformational healing and an end to the choking grasp of shame.
Lyrical and captivating, Home Is Within You recounts the author’s experience of trauma and addiction amid a highly publicized abusive relationship. Davis is brutally honest about her experiences and generous in revealing the paths she found to wholeness through spiritual advocacy, healthy co-parenting, and a dedication to preventing generational trauma.
Nadia Davis is a mom, attorney, victims’ rights advocate, kundalini yoga instructor, and author of Home Is Within You: A Memoir of Recovery and Redemption. She is a survivor of trauma and abuse, a near fatal car accident, addiction, and public shaming. Nadia has a lifetime record of passionate work and of dedication to improving the lives of others, and she has received numerous awards. Nadia has a BA from UCLA and a JD from Loyola Law School. Find her at www.nadia-davis.com
NOTE: See site for RSVP, tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: Bel Canto Books at The Hangout
Date: Thursday the 15th
Time: 6 pm – 8 pm
Address: 2122 E. 4th St., Long Beach, CA 90814
Venice Branch Book Club & Travels with Charlie at Venice Memorial Branch Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
The Venice Memorial Branch Library’s Book Club participants will discuss this month’s selection Travels with Charlie, by author John Steinbeck.
The Friends of the Venice Branch Library generously provides tea and snacks.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Venice Memorial Branch Library, LAPL
Date: Thursday the 15th
Time: 6 pm
Address: 501 S. Venice Blvd., Venice, CA 90291
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/venice-library-book-club
Montana Ave. Book Group Discussion: Braiding Sweetgrass at Montana Branch Library, SMPL – In-Person Event
Join Montana Ave. Branch Book Club participants to discuss this month’s selection, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, by author Robin Wall Kimmerer.
Botanist and Citizen Potawatomi Nation member Kimmerer reflects on the need for acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world.
Where: Montana Avenue Branch Library, SMPL
Date: Thursday the 15th
Time: 6 pm – 8 pm
Address: 1704 Montana Ave., Santa Monica, CA 90402
Website: https://smpl.org/uploadedFiles/Calendar
Open Mic: Besos y Puñales at Re/Arte Centro Literario – In-Person Event
Re/Arte presents our weekly Open Mic: Besos y Puñales.
Musica, poesia, comedia, lectura every Thursday.
Doors open at 6pm
Where: Re/Arte Centro Literario
Date: Thursday the 15th
Time: 6 pm – 8 pm
Address: 2123 East Cesar E. Chavez Ave., Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, CA 90033
Website: https://reartela.com/pages/calendar-of-events or https://www.instagram.com/re.arte.la/?hl=en
Book Talk & Signing: Cecilia Rabess, with Diane Marie Brown, & Everything’s Fine. at Diesel, a Bookstore – In-Person Event
Cecilia Rabess, in conversation with Diane Marie Brown, will read from, discuss, and sign her debut novel, Everything’s Fine
When Jess lands a job as an analyst at Goldman Sachs, she’s less than thrilled to learn she’ll be on the same team as Josh, her preppy, white, conservative sparring partner from college. Josh loves playing the devil’s advocate and is just…the worst. But when Jess finds herself the sole Black woman on the floor, overlooked and underestimated, it’s Josh who shows up for her in surprising—if imperfect—ways. Before long, an unlikely friendship—one tinged with undeniable chemistry—forms between the two. A friendship that gradually, and then suddenly, turns into an electrifying romance that shocks them both. Despite their differences, the force of their attraction propels the relationship forwards, and Jess begins to question whether it’s more important to be happy than right. But then it’s 2016, and the cultural and political landscape shifts underneath them. And Jess, who is just beginning to discover who she is and who she has the right to be, is forced to ask herself what she’s willing to compromise for love and whether, in fact, everything’s fine.
Cecilia Rabess previously worked as a data scientist at Google and as an associate at Goldman Sachs. Her nonfiction has been featured in McSweeneys, FiveThirtyEight, Fast Company, and FlowingData, among other places. Everything’s Fine is her debut novel.
Diane Marie Brown is a professor at Orange Coast College and a public health professional for the Long Beach Health Department. She has a BA and MPH from UCLA and a degree in fiction from USC’s Master of Professional Writing Program. She grew up in Stockton and now lives in Long Beach, California, with her husband, their four daughters, and their dog, Brownie. Black Candle Women is her debut novel.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Diesel, a Bookstore (in the Courtyard)
Date: Thursday the 15th
Time: 6:30 pm
Address: 225 26th St., Santa Monica, CA 90402
Website: https://www.dieselbookstore.com/event/Cecilia-Rabess-Everythings-fine-Author-signing
ALOUD Reading Series: Héctor Tobar, with Caribbean Fragoza, & Our Migrant Souls. at Central Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Héctor Tobar, in conversation with author and educator Caribbean Fragoza, will discus his new book, Our Migrant Souls: A Meditation on Race and the Meanings and Myths of “Latino.”
“Latino” is the most broadly defined major race in the United States. In Pulitzer Prize-winner Héctor Tobar’s new book, Our Migrant Souls: A Meditation on Race and the Meanings and Myths of “Latino,“ Tobar recounts his personal experiences as the son of Guatemalan immigrants and the stories told to him by his Latinx students to offer a thoughtful reproach to racist ideas about Latino people. Our Migrant Souls decodes the meaning of “Latino” as a racial and ethnic identity in the modern United States and seeks to give voice to the angst and anger of young Latino people who have seen Latinidad transformed into hateful tropes about “illegals” and have faced insults, harassment, and division based on white insecurities and economic exploitation.
Héctor Tobar is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and novelist. He is the author of the critically acclaimed, New York Times bestseller, Deep Down Dark, as well as The Barbarian Nurseries, Translation Nation, and The Tattooed Soldier. His new book is Our Migrant Souls: A Meditation on Race and the Meanings and Myths of “Latino”. Héctor is also a contributing writer for the New York Times opinion pages and an associate professor at the University of California, Irvine. He’s written for The New Yorker, The Los Angeles Times, and other publications. His short fiction has appeared in Best American Short Stories, L.A. Noir, Zyzzyva, and Slate. The son of Guatemalan immigrants, he is a native of Los Angeles, where he lives with his family.
Carribean Fragoza is a fiction and nonfiction writer from South El Monte, CA. Her collection of stories Eat the Mouth That Feeds You was published in 2021 by City Lights and was a finalist for a 2022 PEN Award. Her co-edited compilation of essays, East of East: The Making of Greater El Monte was published by Rutgers University Press and her collection of essays Writing Home: New Terrains of California is forthcoming with Angel City Press. She has published in Harper’s Bazaar, The New York Times, Zyzzyva, Alta, BOMB, Huizache, KCET, the Los Angeles Review of Books, ArtNews, and Aperture Magazine. She is the Prose Editor at Huizache Magazine and Creative Nonfiction and Poetry Editor at Boom California, a journal of UC Press. Fragoza is the founder and co-director of South El Monte Arts Posse, an interdisciplinary arts collective. She is a 2023 Whiting Literary Award recipient.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Central Library, LAPL, Mark Taper Auditorium
Date: Thursday the 15th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 630 W. 6th St., Los Angeles, CA 90071
Website: https://lfla.org/calendar/category/aloud/
Book Launch: Mattie Lubchansky, with Grace Freud, & Boys Weekend at Stories Books & Café – In-Person Event
Celebrate the release of Boys Weekend author Mattie Lubchansky, who will be in conversation with Grace Freud.
From the award-winning cartoonist and editor of The Nib, a hilarious trans-“final girl” horror graphic novel about a bachelor party gone very, very wrong.
Part satire, part horror, Boys Weekend explores what it’s like to exist as a transfemme person in a man’s world, the difficulty of maintaining friendships through transition, and the more cult-like effects of masculinity, “hustle” culture, and capitalism—all through the vibrant lens of a surreal, scary, and immensely imaginative romp.
Mattie Lubchansky is a cartoonist and illustrator and the Associate Editor of Ignatz award-winning magazine and website The Nib (thenib.com). They are also an Ignatz winner, a Herblock Prize finalist, and the author of The Antifa Super-Soldier Cookbook. They live in beautiful Queens, NY, with their spouse.
Grace Freud is a writer, mostly of TV (Rick and Morty, The Eric Andre Show, Inside Job, Bad Crimes, Adult Swim) and comic books (Marvel, Oni Press, Z2 Publishing, Vault Comics).
NOTE: See site for guidelines, and details.
Where: Stories Books & Café
Date: Thursday the 15th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 1716 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026
Website: https://storiesla.com/events
Anthony Uzarowski, with Jeremy Kinser, & Jessica Lange: An Adventurer’s Heart at Book Soup – In-Person Event
Anthony Uzarowski, in conversation with Jeremy Kinser, will present and discuss his book, Jessica Lange: An Adventurer’s Heart.
Jessica Lange: An Adventurer’s Heart, the first full-length biography of Lange, presents a comprehensive study of the life and work of an exceptional actress. Beginning with her upbringing in Minnesota, author Anthony Uzarowski traces Lange’s formative years as a restless soul who found solace in art and a life on the road before turning to acting. While critics initially questioned her talent, she refused to be dismissed as yet another pretty face. She continued to study her craft and immersed herself in her roles, honing the poignant and emotionally charged performances for which she is renowned.
Where: Book Soup
Date: Thursday the 15th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, CA 90069
Website: https://www.booksoup.com/event/Anthony-Uzarowski
Tanis Rideout, with Michael MacClennon, & The Sea Between Two Shores at North Figueroa Bookshop – In-Person Event
Author Tanis Rideout, in conversation with Michael MacClennon, will discuss her new book The Sea Between Two Shores.
The Sea Between Two Shores immerses us in the lives of two families connected as much by their desire for healing as by the actions of their ancestors. It is an extraordinary meditation on the complications of history, the possibilities for redemption, and the meaning of the stories we tell ourselves.
This is the author’s new second novel, following her acclaimed first novel Above All Things.She is also the author of the poetry collection Arguments with the Lake, and, in 2006, she was named the “Poet Laureate for Lake Ontario” by the environmental advocacy group Lake Ontario Waterkeeper. Born in Belgium, she grew up in Bermuda and in Kingston, Ontario, and now lives in Los Angeles.
Michael MacLennan has been nominated seven times for the Writers Guild of Canada Canadian Screenwriting Award and received the WGC’s 2018 Showrunner of the Year Award. A producer of nearly 300 episodes, his credits include Co-Executive Producer of Queer As Folk, creator and EP of Godiva’s, Co-EP on Flashpoint, Bitten, and Freeform’s hit series The Fosters. He co-created and show-ran Bomb Girls, twice nominated for Best Series by the Canadian Screen Awards and honoured as Outstanding Dramatic Series by the US Gracie Awards. He has written multiple pilot scripts for CBS and ABC and served as Executive Producer and Showrunner for the BritBox/ITV series The Bletchley Circle: San Francisco. Most recently, he created the Netflix series Tiny Pretty Things, #1 worldwide for fourteen days. After completing his first novel, he is currently on a humbling hunt for a publishing agent.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: North Figueroa Bookshop
Date: Thursday the 15th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 6040 N. Figueroa St., Highland Park, Los Angeles, CA 90042
At the Herald Examiner Building: 13th Annual Zocalo Public Square Book Prize at Skylight Books – In-Person Event
The 13th Annual Zocalo Public Square Book Prize is awarded to The Fight to Save the Town: Reimagining Discarded America, by author Michelle Wilde Anderson.
America’s high-poverty cities and counties have suffered for decades, enduring skyrocketing inequality, the opioid epidemic, rising housing costs, and widespread disinvestment. Governments have offered a variety of failed solutions, from luring wealthy outsiders to slashing public services. But four communities are turning inward instead: Stockton, California; rural Josephine County, Oregon; Lawrence, Massachusetts; and Detroit, Michigan. In these diverse places—all of which went broke in the wake of the Great Recession—locals are building networks and trust in one another and their institutions, to promote health, wealth, and opportunity. In Stockton, this meant designing organizations to help residents cope with trauma. In Josephine County, people convinced freedom-loving, government-averse voters to increase taxes. Lawrence is building a new model to secure living wages. Detroit is battling to stabilize low-income housing.
What did these strategies look and feel like on the ground? How can other struggling places borrow from their playbooks? And what can the rest of the country do to support towns as they try to help themselves? Stanford Law School’s Michelle Wilde Anderson, winner of the 2023 Zócalo Book Prize for The Fight to Save the Town: Reimagining Discarded America, visits Zócalo to talk with Alberto Retana, president and CEO of South L.A.’s Community Coalition, about how a place with the odds against it can draw on historic strengths and resilient rsidents to thrive.
The first 20 in-person attendees checking in June 15 will receive a free, signed copy of The Fight to Save the Town.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Skylight Books at The Herald Examiner Building
Date: Thursday the 15th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 1111 S. Broadway, Los Angeles, CA 90015
At Skylight: Rina Ayuyang, with Pornsak Pichetshote, & The Man in the McIntosh Suit at Skylight Books – In-Person Event
Rina Ayuuang, in conversation with Pornsak Pichetshote, will discuss her graphic novel, The Man in the McIntosh Suit.
This graphic novel is a Filipino-American take on Depression-era noir featuring mistaken identities, speakeasies, and lost love.
The year is 1929 and Bobot is just another migrant worker in rural California. Or rather, a migrant worker with a law degree from the Philippines reduced to manual labor in America. Bobot, like so many other young Filipinos, finds himself bunking in the fields, picking fruit by day. When his cousin writes claiming to have spotted his estranged wife in nearby San Francisco, he swipes a co-worker’s favorite nightclub suit and heads to the big city to find her. What follows is classic noir with seedy dives, mouthy pool sharks, and obsession.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Skylight Books
Date: Thursday the 15th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
Trenches Full of Prose Readings: Live Readings by Four SoCal Writers at Page Against the Machine – In-Person Event
The June Trenches Full of Prose Reading Series launches its inaugural reading series event, offered on the 3rd Thursday of every month.
As its name implies, this series will feature prose writers rather than poets, though both series share a focus on published Southern California writers. To kick off the series, we will be joined by four accomplished educators and writers: Jo Kaplan, Giovan Alonzi, Olga Murillo, and Daniel Jose Ruiz.
Jo Kaplan is the author of the horror novels It Will Just Be Us and When the Night Bells Ring. Her short stories have appeared in Fireside Quarterly, Black Static, Nightmare Magazine, Vastarien, Haunted Library, Nightscript, and a number of anthologies (sometimes as Joanna Parypinski). She is the co-chair of the Horror Writers Association’s LA chapter and teaches English and creative writing at Glendale Community College. Learn more at Jo-Kaplan.com.
Giovan Alonzi was born in 1989 in Santa Monica, CA and raised in Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley. He holds an MFA from California Institute of the Arts where he was awarded the Emi Kuriyama Memorial Thesis Award, and his writing appears in Pank, Full Stop, VOLT, Rivulet, and elsewhere. He currently teaches writing at East Los Angeles College and in the Department of Central American & Transborder Studies at California State University, Northridge.
Olga Murillo was born and raised in Compton, CA. Her city and community hold a special place in her stories and heart. She earned her MFA in Fiction from CSU Long Beach and her BA from UC Irvine. Her work has been published in Issue #42 of RipRap Literary Journal and Los Suelos, CA multimedia anthology. She led a poetry workshop for the Sims Library of Poetry in Los Angeles in March of 2021. She loves her cats, reading, baking, and watching baking videos. She hopes to change the ways of current MFA programs and bring pride to her hometown.
𝗗𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗲𝗹 𝗝𝗼𝘀𝗲 𝗥𝘂𝗶𝘇 is a Los Angeles-based educator and writer. A product of CalArts and UC Irvine and a self-described geek, he likes to write SF or Fantasy with a literary bent. His first novel, Coconut Versus, was published by Floricanto Press, and his first SF novel, The Life of Jian Ciervo, was published by Pegasus Publishing. More of his SF work will be forthcoming from Android Press in early 2024. When he’s not busy writing, he’s busy as a Professor of English at LACC.
Trenches Full of Prose was conceived and curated by poet and literary event organizer Jesse Tovar who will be hosting the evening along with fellow writer Jade Harvey.
The event is free and open to the public, no tickets or reservations required!
NOTE: See site for guidelines, and details.
Where: Page Against the Machine
Date: Thursday the 15th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm
Address: 2714 E. 4th St., Long Beach, CA
Website: https://www.facebook.com/events
Spectacular Storytime at Once Upon a Time Bookstore – In-Person Kids Event
Spectacular Storytime is a weekly time to have fun with books with enthusiastic troubadour, Maddi!
Free to attend.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Once Upon a Time Bookstore
Date: Friday the 16th
Time: 9:30 am
Address: 2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose, CA 91020
Website: https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event/spectacular-story-time-36
Bookish Discussion Event: Mona Simpson and Peter Wohlleben – presented by Southern California News Group via Once Upon a Time Bookstore – Online Event
You are invited to a one-hour event featuring conversations with authors, thinkers, and performers.
Discover new book releases, meet interesting people, and learn about a variety of topics with host Sandra Tsing Loh, writer, actress and radio personality.
Mona Simpson will present and discuss her new novel, Commitment. This novel is a a masterful and engrossing novel about a single mother’s collapse and the fate of her family after she enters a California state hospital in the 1970s.
Mona Simpson is the acclaimed author of the novels Anywhere But Here, The Lost Father, and Off Keck Road, among others. Simpson teaches creative writing at UCLA; and also has an appointment at Bard College in New York state.
Peter Wohlleben will present and discuss his new book, The Power of Trees: How Ancient Forests Can Save Us If We Let Them.
This book is an illuminating manifesto on ancient forests: how they adapt to climate change by passing their wisdom through generations, and why our future lies in protecting them.
In his beloved book The Hidden Life of Trees, Peter Wohlleben revealed astonishing discoveries about the social networks of trees and how they communicate. Now, in The Power of Trees, he turns to their future, with a searing critique of forestry management, tree planting, and the exploitation of old growth forests.
Sandra Tsing Loh is the host of BOOKISH, produced by the Southern California News Group. She is the author of several books including The Madwoman and the Roomba, which was selected as one of the New York Times’ 100 Most Notable Books. A well-known voice on NPR, she is the producer of the Loh Down on Science and a contributing editor at The Atlantic. Her previous book, Mother on Fire, was inspired by her hit solo show about Los Angeles public education. Her other solo shows include Aliens in America and Bad Sex with Budd Kem.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Once Upon a Time Bookstore
Date: Friday the 16th
Time: 5 pm
Address: Online Zoom Event (see site)
Website: https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event/bookish-june-2023
Anthony J. Mohr & Every Other Weekend: Coming of Age with Two Different Dads at Chevalier’s Books – In-Person Event
Anthony J, Mohr will discuss his book, Every Other Weekend: Coming of Age with Two Different Dads
Anthony’s father, Gerald Mohr, is a well-known radio actor before slipping to the Hollywood B-list thanks to the advent of television. Accepting the lead in a dying Swedish TV series, he falls for the script girl and divorces Mohr’s mother, who goes on to meet and marry another divorcee, credit card industry pioneer Stanley Dashew.
As his stepfather’s career rises and his biological father’s eases downward, Anthony tries to find his place. One weekend he’s sailing on his stepfather’s fifty-eight-foot catamaran; the next, his Swedish stepmother tells him that they’re poor. Coming of age in a time when divorce is rare and viewed as shocking, Anthony lives at the edges of what others regard as a dream world, a place where reality and fantasy blend, maps lead to the homes of the stars, and obstacles abound.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Chevalier’s Books
Date: Friday the 16th
Time: 6 pm – 7 pm
Address: 133 N. Larchmont Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90004
Website: https://www.chevaliersbooks.com/calendar
At Skylight: Jack Skelley, with Chris Kraus, & The Complete Fear of Kathy Acker at Skylight Books – In-Person Event
Jack Skelley, in conversation with Chris Kraus, will discuss his new book, The Complete Fear of Kathy Acker.
Join Skylight Books for the first complete edition of this notorious novel which maps the 1980s anarchic underground of Los Angeles.
Published in excerpts over almost four decades, Jack Skelley’s “secretly legendary” novel is at once an homage to the thrillingly inventive spirit of Kathy Acker’s cut-up novels and a definitive history of LA’s underground culture of the mid-1980s.
Composed in bursts, Fear of Kathy Acker depicts Los Angeles through the eyes of a self-mocking narrator. Shifting styles and personae as he moves between Venice and Torrance, punk clubs and shopping malls, Disneyland and Dodger Stadium, Jack Skelley pushes the limits of language and identity while pursuing—much as Kathy Acker did—a quixotic literary mix of discipline and anarchy. In this adrenalized, cosmic, and comic chronicle of Los Angeles, Skelley’s “real life” friends make cameo appearances alongside pop archetypes from Madonna to Billy Idol.
This first-ever complete edition of the book includes new essays, playlists, and a map of 1980s Los Angeles in which its manic protagonist lives and loves.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Skylight Books
Date: Friday the 16th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027
At Tia Chucha’s: Maria Amparo Escandon & L.A. Weather at Tia Chucha’s Bookstore – In-Person & Online Hybrid Event
Maria Amparo Escandon will be in conversation to present her New York Times bestseller novel,L.A. Weather.
L.A. is dry as a bone, and all Oscar Alvarado desperately wants is a little rain. He’s harboring a costly secret that consumes him, and his wife, Keila, wants a divorce. Their three daughters—Claudia, and entitled television chef; Olivia, and architect suffering from gentrification guilt; and Patricia, a social media wizard who connects with her followers but not her lovers—are left questioning their own relationships. With quick wit and humor, Escandon follows and Alcarados as they wrestle with motherhood, lovers, secrets, and their toughest decision yet: whether to stick together or burn it all down.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, links, and details.
Where: Tia Chucha’s Bookstore
Date: Friday the 16th
Time: 7 pm – 8:30 pm
Address: 12677 Glenoaks Blvd., Sylmar, CA 91342
Website: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=772242154558282&set=pb.100053175145055.-2207520000
Kristen Jokinen & Joy Ride at Vroman’s – In-Person Event
Kristen Jokinen will present and discuss her book, Joy Ride: A Bike Odyssey From Alaska to Argentina.
Explorers Kristen and Ville Jokinen met and fell in love while scuba diving in Vietnam. Ville then left his native Finland to join Kristen in Oregon and together they embarked on a life-changing two-year cycling adventure covering 18,000 miles from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, to Ushuaia, Argentina. Despite never having cycled further than around the block, they persevered unrelenting, punishing rain and wind, altitude sickness, dog attacks, bike accidents, and countless flat tires to cycle between the ends of the earth. Kristen and Ville believe that kindness connects us to our shared humanity. They held babies, attended quincea eras, drank pulque, played soccer, and visited schools. People in Mexico, Central America, and South America invited them into their hearts and homes, allowed them to camp in their fields and farms, and acted as personal tour guides. Kristen and Ville are love on wheels, and who doesn’t need a little more love in their lives?
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Vroman’s
Date: Friday the 14th
Time: 7 pm
Address: 695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA 91101
Website: https://www.vromansbookstore.com/Kristen-Jokinen-discusses-Joy-Ride
The Post Up: Readings & Open Mic hosted by Brenda Vaca at Casa Verde LA – In-Person Event & IG Live
Brenda Vaca hosts The Post Up Readings & Open Mic Event on every 3rd Friday of the month at Uptown Plants at Casa Verde LA.
Come for: Storytelling x Friends and Vendors x Vibes.
This month’s features TBA.
NOTE: See site for RSVP and details.
Where: Casa Verde LA
Date: Friday the 16th
Time: 7:30 pm – 9 pm
Address: 12909 Philadelphia St., Whittier, CA
Website: https://www.instagram.com/iambrendavaca/?hl=en
SWAAM Spoken Word Art & Music Event & Open Mic by Lorenzo Frank at Barbara Morrison Performing Arts Center – In-Person Event
Join us to hear a featured poet, plus an Open Mic, hosted by Lorenzo Frank on the first and third Friday of the month.
Featured artist: TBA
Lorenzo Frank is the author of ‘Nzinga Teaches/Learns a Lesson’ book series.
NOTE: See site for costs, guidelines, and details.
Where: Barbara Morrison Performing Arts Center
Date: Friday the 16th
Time: 8 pm – 11 pm
Address: 4305 Degnan Blvd., Leimert Park, Los Angeles, CA 90008
Website: https://www.facebook.com/swaampoetry
Third Fridays Rapp Saloon Reading Series, with host Elena Secota, via Rapp Saloon – In-Person & Online Event
Third Fridays at Rapp Saloon Open Mic & Featured Readers is an event offered every 3rd Friday of the month, curated by host Elena Secota.
RSVP at site.
Featured guest poets and artists this month: Hannah Packman & Russell Greene, plus Surprise Guests.
Share your voice at the Open Mic, where there is a time limit of 4 minutes max. Sign-ups are: 8 pm – 8:30 pm.
NOTE: See site for event details.
Where: Rapp Saloon at HISUA
Date: Friday the 16th
Time: 8:30 pm – 11 pm
Address: 1436 2nd St., Santa Monica, CA 90401 (Zoom link in bio)
Website: https://www.facebook.com/therappsaloonpoetryreading/
Graphic Novel Book Club & Gay Giant: a Memoir via Bel Canto Books – Online Event
Join the Graphic Novel Book Club hosted by Bel Canto Books as we read and discuss a new graphic novel or memoir on the 3rd Saturday of each month at 10am PT | 1pm ET.
This month participants will read and discuss Gay Giant: A Memoir, by author Gabriel Ebensperger.
The vibrant bright pink pages of Gay Giant paint a picture of what it was like to grow up being gay in the ’90s, through the voice of an endearing character, who on the way to becoming an adult realizes that the rejection of the world is never over, and that true acceptance comes from within yourself.
Our book club is free to attend; we kindly ask that you support our work and our featured authors by buying books from us via our bookstore inside The Hangout (local pickup available), Bookshop.org (print, audio, e-book), or Libro.fm (audiobook).
NOTE: See site for event details and guidelines.
Where: Bel Canto Books
Date: Saturday the 17th
Time: 10 am – 11 am
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/graphic-novel-book-club-hosted-by-bel-canto-books-tickets-492235929917
Chancla Cartography: A Prose Workshop with Caribbean Fragoza at Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center – In-Person Event
This writing workshop is an intensive prose workshop designed around place-based narratives with Carribean Fragoza.
“Chancla Cartography” is a pedestrian approach to writing that finds rich subject material in daily environments and interactions. This prose workshop draws from elements of nonfiction and fiction to call upon personal and collective narratives embedded in familiar landscapes such as in a neighborhood or home. Participants will be encouraged to tap into the complex knowledge contained in its places, objects and people.
Carribean Fragoza is a fiction and nonfiction writer from South El Monte, CA. Her collection of stories Eat the Mouth That Feeds You was published in 2021 by City Lights and was a finalist for a 2022 PEN Award. Her co-edited compilation of essays, East of East: The Making of Greater El Monte was published by Rutgers University Press and her collection of essays Writing Home: New Terrains of California is forthcoming with Angel City Press. She has published in Harper’s Bazaar, The New York Times, Zyzzyva, Alta, BOMB, Huizache, KCET, the Los Angeles Review of Books, ArtNews, and Aperture Magazine. She is the Prose Editor at Huizache Magazine and Creative Nonfiction and Poetry Editor at Boom California, a journal of UC Press. Fragoza is the founder and co-director of South El Monte Arts Posse, an interdisciplinary arts collective. She is a 2023 Whiting Literary Award recipient.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, cost, scholarship information and details.
Where: Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center
Date: Saturday the 17th
Time:11 am – 2 pm
Address: 681 Venice Blvd., Venice, CA 90291
Notable Fiction Book Group Discussion: Lucy by the Sea via Santa Monica Public Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Notable Fiction Book Group participants will discuss Lucy by the Sea by Elizabeth Strout.
In Pulitzer winner Strout’s third book centered onLucy Barton, Lucy and her ex-husband fleeManhattan to isolate from COVID together in asmall Maine town, confronting their relationship andthe turmoil of the world around them.
Emaillibrary@santamonica.gov for Zoom info.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, link, and details.
Where: Santa Monica Public Library
Date: Saturday the 17th
Time: 11 am – 12 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://smpl.org/uploadedFiles/Calendar
“On Juneteenth” Reading Circle: On Juneteenth at Central Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Join us as we read On Juneteenth aloud together the critically acclaimed account of how, more than two years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, Black Texans learned of their freedom.
Written by an African American Texas native, historian Annette Gordon-Reed, the book offers context for this historical moment for both the State of Texas and the United States as a whole.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Central Library, LAPL, Social Sciences/Philosophy/Religion Dept. – LL3
Date: Saturday the 17th
Time: 12 pm
Address: 630 W. 5th St., Los Angeles, CA 90071
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/juneteenth-reading-circle
Brian Sonia-Wallace Birthday Launch of Maze Mouth at Secret Location – In-Person Event
Join Brian Sonia-Wallace on his birthday for the launch of his new book, Maze Mouth, from Moon Tide Press.
About Maze Mouth: Raw-as in haunting, but also as in, no condom—West Hollywood City Poet Laureate Brian Sonia-Wallace’s culminating laureate project traces the year he lost his father and moved to a gay mecca. Expect human pups, apocalypse salesmen, orgy fish, and an insatiable, sushi-eating Death.
About Brian: Hi! You probably know me, but just in case: I’m a poet, a gym rat, a big eater, a cyclist, a cheerful nihilist, a clown, a community organizer, and a tired homosexual. I like mezcal and wry jokes about the patriarchy. I’m organizing 20 gay-ass poets to write poems for strangers at Pride events this month, and we have a big show at Grand Performances on June 23 you should come to as well! Flyer below.
The RSVP is the cost of a book, and everyone will get a signed copy. We’ll have some snacks and booze, feel free to bring more!
Readings/happenings at 2 and 4pm (with additional surprise readers)
Secret location sent the night before the event.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: TBA off-Sunset
Date: Saturday the 17th
Time: 12 pm – 5 pm
Address: TBAoff Sunset (Buy a ticket and get a book and location)
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/brians-birthday-book-launch-maze-mouth-tickets-643402483147
La Pintoresca Octavia’s Birthday Celebration with Octavia’s Bookshelf at La Pintoresca Branch Library of Pasadena Public Library – In-Person Event
Come by La Pintoresca Library to celebrate Octavia Butler during her birth month!
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: La Pintoresca Branch Library, Pasadena Public Library
Date: Saturday the 17th
Time: 1 pm – 5 pm
Address: 1355 N. Raymond Ave., Pasadena, CA 91103
Website: https://www.octaviasbookshelf.com/events/la-pintoresca-octavias-birthday-celebration
Huntington Library Pop-Up at the Octavia Lab at Central Library, LAPL – In-Person Event
Visit the Octavia Lab and write your affirmations inspired by Octavia E. Butler’s manifesto with our guests Kate Zankowicz and Tamara Davidson from The Huntington.
The Huntington will generously provide A Guide to Octavia E. Butler’s Pasadena maps and passes to The Huntington to participants. Notebooks will also be provided while supplies last.
The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens, known as The Huntington, is a collections-based educational and research institution established by Henry E. Huntington.
The Octavia Lab, named after the award-winning science fiction author Octavia E. Butler, is a do-it-yourself makerspace inside the Los Angeles Public Library’s historic Central Library.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Central Library, LAPL, Octavia Lab
Date: Saturday the 17th
Time: 2 pm – 4 pm
Address: 630 W. 5th St., Los Angeles, CA 90071
Website: https://lapl.org/whats-on/events/huntington-library-pop-octavia-lab-celebrating-octavia-e-butler
Book Signing: Anece Rochel & Juneteenth at Malik Books, Westfield Culver City Mall – In-Person Event
Anece Rochel will present and sign Juneteenth, an entertaining picture storybook that explains the origin, customs, and importance of the Juneteenth Holiday, in a fun and interactive way. This book is the fourth installment in the Beautiful Me Series, to help children build a stronger vocabulary.
Where: Malik’s Books at Westfield Culver City Mall
Date: Saturday the 17th
Time: 2 pm
Address: 6000 Sepulveda Blvd., Suite 2470, Culver City, CA 90230
Website: https://malikbooks.com/events
Poetry Reading Event: Susan Atkins, Jackie Chou, S.A. Gerber + Spectrum Poets via Saturday Afternoon Poetry – Online Event
Don Kingfisher Campbell hosts featured poets Susan Atkins, Jackie Chou, S.A. Gerber + Spectrum Poets published in Spectrum: The Villanelle Masters.
Jackie Chou is a poet whose work is inspired by her inner world and the urban landscape where she grew up. Her work has appeared in Alien Buddha Zine, Cajun Mutt Press, Spillwords, Highland Park Poetry, and Fevers of the Mind Poetry Digest. She is the author of Finding My Heart in Love and Loss.
S. A. Gerber is a native of Los Angeles, CA. His work has appeared in such diverse publications as Desert Voices Magazine, Subtopian Magazine…Talking Sidewalks…Mad Swirl…Sediment Literary and Arts Journal…Poetica Magazine…Black Heart Magazine…The Blue Collar Review…Los Angeles Review of Los Angeles, and The Linden Avenue Literary Journal. His two (2) volumes of poetry, Under the Radar and Inventory can both be obtained on Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com, as well as Beyond Baroque bookstore in Venice, CA. and The Amber Unicorn in Las Vegas.
Where: Saturday Afternoon Poetry on Zoom only.
Date: Saturday the 17th
Time: 3 pm – 5 pm
Address: Online Zoom Event Only (see site)
Website: http://saturdayafternoonpoetry.blogspot.com/
Book Launch: Lizzy Ives & Fat Witch Summer at Village Well Books & Coffee – In-Person Event
Lizzy Ives will present her book, Fat Witch Summer, the official release party for a body-positive YA fantasy novel for fans of friendship, road trips, and magic.
Join us for a conversation and Q&A with author Lizzy Ives, moderated by Justine Pucella Winans. We’ll discuss self-love, confidence, and fat liberation as swimsuit season approaches. Plus: free snacks, book plates, and friendship bracelet crafting!
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: Village Well Books & Coffee
Date: Saturday the 17th
Time: 5 pm – 6 pm
Address: 9900 Culver Blvd., #1B, Culver City, CA 90232
Website: https://shop.villagewell.com/events/25777
Author Talk and Q&A: Maria, Maria and Other Stories by Marytza K. Rubio at LibroMobile, Santa Ana – In-Person Event
Marytza K. Rubio is a writer from Santa Ana, California. Her debut short story collection, MARIA, MARIA & OTHER STORIES explores the lives of mystics and misfits throughout the Americas and was longlisted for a 2022 National Book Award. She is a 2022 Nexus Fellow and Vice President of Community & Culture at Segerstrom Center for the Arts.
Marytza K. Rubio will be presenting her book in conversation by Reggie Peralta.
Set against the tropics and megacities of the Americas, Maria, Maria takes inspiration from wild creatures, tarot, and the porous borders between life and death. Motivated by love and its inverse, grief, the characters who inhabit these stories negotiate boldly with nature to cast their desired ends. As the enigmatic community college professor in “Brujería for Beginners” reminds us: “There’s always a price for conjuring in darkness. You won’t always know what it is until payment is due.” This commitment drives the disturbingly faithful widow in “Tijuca,” who promises to bury her husband’s head in the rich dirt of the jungle, and the sisters in “Moksha,” who are tempted by a sleek obsidian dagger once held by a vampiric idol. But magic isn’t limited to the women who wield it. As Rubio so brilliantly elucidates, animals are powerful magicians too. Subversive pigeons and hungry jaguars are called upon in “Tunnels,” and a lonely little girl runs free with a resurrected saber-toothed tiger in “Burial.” A colorful catalog of gallery exhibits from animals in therapy is featured in “Art Show,” including the Almost Philandering Fox, who longs after the red pelt of another, and the recently rehabilitated Paranoid Peacocks. Brimming with sharp wit and ferocious female intuition, these stories bubble over into the titular novella, “Maria, Maria”–a tropigoth family drama set in a reimagined California rainforest that explores the legacies of three Marias, and possibly all Marias. Writing in prose so lush it threatens to creep off the page, Rubio emerges as an ineffable new voice in contemporary short fiction.
Where: LibroMobile
Date: Saturday the 17th
Time: 6 pm – 8 pm
Address: 1150 S. Bristol St., #A3, Santa Ana, CA 92704
Nolan Knight, with Richard Lange, & Gallows Dome at North Figueroa Bookshop – In-Person Event
Author Nolan Knight, in conversation with Richard Lange, will discuss his new book Gallows Dome.
In this story, Lena Madadhi is desperate, a middle-aged arts teacher in Los Angeles whose teen daughter has been abducted. When seeking help from a private investigator, Joe Delancey, she finds he is out on a case at a Central Valley truck stop, deep undercover among truckers, prostitutes, and nomads—entrenched in a doomsday sect called Gallows Dome. The further Lena digs to find Joe, the deeper she submerges into The Dome’s hellscape, spiraling closer toward her daughter’s whereabouts than she could ever imagine. An unflinching look at the dark side of family and faith, Nolan Knight’s Gallows Dome tackles a current American landscape whose thoughts and prayers help flap its flags at half-mast—teetering on the brink of total collapse.
Nolan Knight is a fourth generation Angeleno and former staff writer for the L.A. Record. His short fiction has been featured in various publications including Akashic Books, Thuglit, Crimespree Magazine, Shotgun Honey, Tough and Needle. His novel, Gallows Dome, is forthcoming from Down & Out Books. He lives in Long Beach.
Richard Lange’s stories have appeared in The Sun, The Iowa Review, and Best American Mystery Stories, and as part of the Atlantic Monthly’s Fiction for Kindle series. “Apocrypha” was awarded the 2015 Short Story Dagger by Great Britain’s Crime Writers’ Association. He is the author of the collections Dead Boys and Sweet Nothing and the novels This Wicked World, Angel Baby, which won the Hammett Prize from the International Association of Crime Writers, The Smack and Rovers. He received the Rosenthal Family Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and was a 2009 Guggenheim Fellow.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, guidelines, and details.
Where: North Figueroa Bookshop
Date: Saturday the 17th
Time: 6 pm – 8 pm
Address: 6040 N. Figueroa St., Highland Park, Los Angeles, CA 90042
Website: https://northfigbookshop.com/events/617-6pm-gallows-dome-reading-and-signing-with-nolan-knight/
Poetry & Music Jam at Sims Library of Poetry – In-Person Hybrid Event
Join Sims Library of Poetry for a Poetry & Music Jam.
Bring your poems, bring your instruments, share your story.
RSVP
Where: Sims Library of Poetry
Date: Saturday the 17th
Time: 6 pm – 8 pm
Address: 2702 W. Florence Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90043
Website: https://www.simslibraryofpoetry.org/event-details/poetry-music-jam-9
Author Event: Jocelyn Jones, with Claire Fullerton, & Artist: Awakening the Spirit Within at Zibby’s Bookshop – In-Person Event
Join an in-person author event with Jocelyn Jones, in conversation with Claire Fullerton, to discuss her book, Artist: Awakening the Spirit Within.
Jocelyn Jones is one of Hollywood’s most prized secret weapons. A legendary acting teacher, coach, and artistic advisor to the stars, she has served as a confidential Creative Consultant on some of the highest-grossing pictures of all time. Now, she shares her personal journey—and the secrets behind her unique methodology—in Artist: Awakening the Spirit Within.
RSVP
Where: Zibby’s Bookshop
Date: Saturday the 17th
Time: 6 pm – 7 pm
Address: 1113 Montana Ave, Santa Monic, CA 90402
Book Launch: Susan Hayden & Now You Are a Missing Person at Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center – In-Person Event (SOLD OUT)
Celebrate the book launch of Now You Are A Missing Person by Susan Hayden, published by Moon Tide Press. Poetry readings by S.A.Griffin and Michael C. Ford, music by The Prickly Pair, and food. MC’ed by Eric Moraga ofMoon Tide Press.
Susan Hayden’s lyrical memoir, Now You Are a Missing Person (June 2023, Moon Tide Press), explores how love, grief, and the disappearing landscape of the San Fernando Valley and Los Angeles shaped her life through a collection of stories and poems. Hayden is best known for her award-winning monthly literary series, Library Girl, which has given a platform and a home to a diverse community of writers and musicians since 2009. With her debut book, she moves front and center.
Three devastating losses are at the heart of Susan Hayden’s memoir. The suddenness of each of these deaths ― her father, her childhood best friend, and her husband―sparks and guides a series of explorations to claim equilibrium and a sense of self. Raised in an observant Jewish family in the suburban San Fernando Valley, she struggles and finds her footing in an ever-shifting culture of expectations around body image, sexuality, motherhood, widowhood, and autonomy.
Susan Hayden is a multi-genre writer on a scavenger hunt for love, magic, and home in a disappearing landscape. Her work has been published in numerous anthologies including, most recently, Beat Not Beat (Moon Tide Press). Hayden is the creator and producer of Library Girl, the long-running, monthly literary series at Ruskin Group Theatre. The proud mother of singer-songwriter Mason Summit, she lives in Santa Monica, CA with her husband, music journalist Steve Hochman. Now You Are a Missing Person is her first published book.
S.A. Griffin drives too fast, sleeps too little and thinks too much. A co-editor of Beat Not Beat, his second book from Punk Hostage Press, Pandemic Soul Music, features drawings by his late sister Robin Lynne Griffin. In 2010 he created and toured with Elsie the Poetry Bomb; a Vietnam era practice bomb converted into an art object filled with over 900 poems from around the world, all in an effort to inspire civil disagreements. Father, husband, cat lover, left-handed lefty, and Vietnam era veteran.
A legendary voice in the LA poetry scene, Michael C Ford has produced a steady stream of print and recorded product since 1970. Hen House Studios continues to publicize and market his recorded tracks Look Each Other in the Ears (2014) with surviving members of a 1960s theatre rock quartet most of you may remember as The Doors. A chapbook titled Populated Wilderness in conjunction with Ion Drive Publishing is being produced as a fundraiser for Lockwood Animal Rescue Center. His most recent collection of poetry and prose will be published by Mystic Boxing Committee Press.
Irene Greene & Mason Summit join forces as The Prickly Pair, a duo specializing in angsty Americana with a contemporary perspective. Both have pursued solo careers but sought to combine their talents in a project that demonstrates a deep mutual love of country & western traditions while staying true to their own musical instincts. “Long Gone,” their latest single, came out in April of this year. The two are currently based in Nashville. For updates, follow @ThePricklyPairMusic on all platforms.
Where: Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center
Date: Saturday the 17th
Time: 7 pm – 9 pm (Reception at 6 pm)
Address: 681 Venice Blvd., Venice, CA 90291
Griot Café Open Mic with Sistah Shy & Samuel Rain & Featured Guest TBA at Shades of Africa, Long Beach – In-Person Event
Sistah Shy & Samuel Rain host the Griot Café Open Mic & Poetry event every Saturday evening at Shades of Africa in Long Beach. See site to subscribe for reminders, etc.
Where: Griot Café at Shades of Africa
Date: Saturday the 17th
Time: 8 pm – 10 pm
Address: 1001 E. 4th St., Long Beach, CA 90802
Website: https://shadesofafrika.com/griot-cafe-open-mic-poetry/
Story Time with Olivia Smith & Dog Detectives at Flintridge Bookstore – In-Person Kids & Family Event
Olivia Smith will read and discuss her children’s book, Dog Detectives Jacob and Bricks Mystery at the Lake.
Jacob and Bricks see something fishy happening at their lake. They follow a mysterious creature and uncover a problem in their town. It’s up to these two pooch pals to help save the day once again!
Olivia Smith is an Emmy Award-winning, multi-platform journalist based in Los Angeles. She is the Executive Producer of Next Generation Storytelling at ABC7. Olivia focuses on telling stories for all media platforms in addition to supervising and training others at the company. Prior to ABC7, Olivia helped build the digital video teams for ABC News National and Good Morning America. Olivia has a number of passion projects outside of her day job, and is a children’s book author of this series she created with her father about detective dogs.
NOTE: See site for guidelines and details. Order signed book at site.
Where: Flintridge Bookstore
Date: Sunday the 18th
Time: 10:30 am
Address: 858 Foothill Blvd., La Canada-Flintridge, CA 91011
Story Time with Leah Hayes & I Touched the Sun at Once Upon a Time – In-Person Kids & Family Event
Story Time with bestselling illustrator Leah Hayes will present her debut picture book, I touched the Sun.
This beautifully illustrated story encourages readers to find courage and hope together and is best for ages 4+. After the reading, there will be an easy craft and drawing demo. Leah will then sign books!
Leah Hayes is a graphic novelist, illustrator, and creator. In addition to writing and illustrating several books, her editorial work appears often in the New Yorker, New York Times, and many other publications. Hayes is also a musician and leader of her band, Scary Mansion, and is a producer and songwriter for other pop and hip-hop artists as well. She lives with her husband and two children on an island off the coast of Massachusetts.
NOTE: See site for guidelines and details. Order signed book at site.
Where: Once Upon a Time
Date: Sunday the 18th
Time: 11 am
Address: 2207 Honolulu Ave., Montrose CA 91020
Website: https://www.shoponceuponatime.com/event
Chat & Chew Fundraising Event: The Color Purple at The Salt Eaters Bookshop – In-Person Event
Join the Salt Eaters Bookstore for an evening of intimate conversation & fellowship surrounding the food of The Color Purple by Alice Walker.
Enjoy a tasting menu inspired by Miss Celie’s breakfast that includes Southern style grits with an array of toppings, fruit, pancake bites, and lavender lemonade prepared by our very own Hazel Powers.
Prior reading appreciated, but not required! We encourage you to arrive in your juke joint’s finest.
Book Discussion Leaders:
About Asha Grant:
Asha Grant is a community librarian and founder of The Salt Eaters Bookshop, a mission-driven independent bookshop and Black Feminist literary hub in Inglewood prioritizing books, comics, and zines by and about Black women, femmes, and gender expansive people. Asha loves napping and eating spoonfuls of Jeni’s ice cream when she wakes.
About Hazel Powers:
Hazel Powers is a home cook, doula and sociologist obsessed with Zora Neale Hurston, astrology, and her Gullah Geechee heritage. She developed her love for Black media and archival research in her daddy’s record collection, great-grandmother’s jewelry and the Hampton University Museum. A proud descendant of Lumberton, NC, Hazel has been cooking for family and loved ones for over twenty years.
About The Color Purple by Alice Walker:
The Color Purple depicts the lives of African American women in early twentieth-century rural Georgia. Separated as girls, sisters Celie and Nettie sustain their loyalty to and hope in each other across time, distance and silence. Through a series of letters spanning twenty years, first from Celie to God, then the sisters to each other despite the unknown, the novel draws readers into its rich and memorable portrayals of Celie, Nettie, Shug Avery and Sofia and their experience. The Color Purple broke the silence around domestic and sexual abuse, narrating the lives of women through their pain and struggle, companionship and growth, resilience and bravery. Deeply compassionate and beautifully imagined, Alice Walker’s epic carries readers on a spirit-affirming journey towards redemption and love.
NOTE: See site for RSVP, tickets, guidelines and details.
Where: The Salt Eaters Bookshop
Date: Sunday the 18th
Time: 1 pm – 3 pm
Address: 302 E. Queen St., Inglewood, CA 90301
Workshop with Dane Harris: Everyone Can Write Ekphrastic Poetry via Sims Library of Poetry – Online Event
Everyone Can Write Ekphrastic Poetry is a free writing workshop facilitated by Dane Harris where you will learn how to use a variety of art forms to jump-start your foray into ekphrastic poetry.
Dane Lyn (they/them) is a neurodivergent, genderqueer, disabled, educator, poet, and glitter enthusiast with an MFA from Lindenwood University. Find them in L.A. with their partner, constructing blanket forts, caring for their menagerie of teens, snakes, lizards, dogs, rabbits, and cats, and ridding their shoes of beach sand. Dane’s work can be seen in Quillkeepers, Gnashing Teeth, Gutslut, and Imposter. Their debut chapbook by bottlecap press, bubblegum black will be released in early 2023.
They are on social media @punkhippypoet and most of their published work can be seen at http://www.danelyn.netb
RSVP
Where: Sims Library of Poetry
Date: Sunday the 18th
Time: 4 pm
Address: Online Event (see site)
Website: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/everyone-can-write-ekphrastic-poetry-tickets-541814340277
El Martillo Press Book Launch: Margaret Elysia Garcia & the daughterland at Margaret Elysia Garcia’s Studio – In-Person Event
El Martillo Press hosts a book Launch for Margaret Elysia Garcia’s book, the daughterland at her studio.
Margaret Elysia Garcia is the author of the ebook Sad Girls & Other Stories and the audiobook Mary of the Chance Encounters, and a collection of gothic short stories, Graft. She’s the co-founder and head writer of Plumas’s own Pachuca Productions-a Latina theatre duo producing original and social justice plays. She’s the author of several poetry chapbooks including: The Alzheimer’s Cul de Sac, When the Ground Tore Open, and You in the House of My Heart. Margaret’s work has been featured in the Akashic Noir Series Santa Cruz Noir, PM Press’ All of Me: Stories of Love, Anger, and the Female Body, and on Upworthy, Juked, and Catamaran Literary Reader, among others.
NOTE: See site for guidelines and details.
Where: Margaret Garcia’s Studio
Date: Sunday the 18th
Time: 5 pm
Address: 4022 N. Figueroa St., Los Angeles, CA 90065
Website: https://www.instagram.com/p/Csskh9CujoX/
Book Launch: Emily Wells, with William J. Simmons, & A Matter of Appearance at Stories Books & Café – In-Person Event
Emily Wells, in conversation with William J. Simmons, will present her book, A Matter of Appearance.
This book isa a dazzling memoir of chronic illness that explores the fraught intersection between pain, language, and gender, by debut author Emily Wells.
Emily Wells spent her childhood dancing through intense pain she assumed was normal for a ballerina pushing her body to its limits. For years, no doctor could tell Wells that was wrong with her, or they told her it was all in her head.
In A Matter of Appearance, Wells traces her journey as she tries to understand and define the chronic pain she has lived with all her life. She draws on the critical works of Freud, Sontag, and others to explore the intersection between gender, pain, and language, and she traces a direct line from the “hysteria patients” at the Salpêtrière Hospital in nineteenth-century Paris to the contemporary New Age healers in Los Angeles, her stomping ground. At the crux of Wells’ literary project is the dilemma of how to diagnose an experience that is both private and public, subjective, and quantifiable, and how to express all this in words.NOTE: Details at event link.
Emily Wells is a writer based in Los Angeles. She holds an MFA in creative writing from UC Riverside and teaches writing at UC Irvine. She writes for publications including Bookforum, Vogue, Interview Magazine, The Los Angeles Review of Books, The White Review, Flash Art, and Purple Fashion Magazine. She has been a magazine editor, fashion model, crime reporter, and classically trained ballet dancer.
Where: Stories Books & Café
Date: Sunday the 18th
Time: 7 pm – 8 pm
Address: 1716 W. Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90026
Website: https://storiesla.com/events
June Focus on Craft Book Club: Just As You Are at The Ripped Bodice – In-Person Event
The Ripped Bodice presents the June Focus on Craft Book Club every 3rd Sunday of the month, and today’s selection is Just As You Are by author Camille Kellogg.
The Focus on Craft book club is led by developmental editor and teacher Jeanne De Vita and focuses on examining popular romance novels from a writer’s viewpoint. But everyone is welcome, you don’t have to be a writer!
Equal parts witty and steamy, this debut rom-com brings a healthy dose of queerness and a whole lot of spirit to a Pride and Prejudice-inspired enemies-to-lovers romance.
This page-turning, sexy, and delightfully funny rom-com celebrates queer culture, chosen family, and falling in love against your better judgment.
Camille Kellogg is a queer writer based in New York City, where she works as an editor for children’s and young adult books. She studied English and creative writing at Middlebury College and attended the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference on a fiction scholarship. She’s passionate about queer stories, cute dogs, and bad puns.
No membership is necessary, feel free to show up!
NOTE: See site for tickets, guidelines, and details.
Where: The Ripped Bodice
Date: Sunday the 18th
Time: 7:15 pm
Address: Main Street, Culver City, CA 90323
Website: https://www.therippedbodicela.com/events-and-tickets
Los Angeles Literature 